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Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Firstly, i am afraid you cannot "commit" this person, as you have no legal right to do so. What you can do is perhaps seek out a properly
qualified professional and explain your fears.
Your concern for your friend is admirable, it sounds like you too may be reaching "Breaking-point", if you are responding in kind.

So for your own sake, as well as his, this may be the path to follow.
I hope that you are able to find a solution to this.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Never a loved one, but early this year a friend from university lost it due to drug abuse and underlying mental health issues. This all lead to weeks of death threats from him via the internet, and increasing insane writing about aliens coming to get him. Getting someone sectioned is pretty damn hard and we had to fight his parents to get him the help he needed as he had become a danger to himself and those around him - he believed me and all my friends from university were aliens and he wanted to peel our skin off, and that all the water in his house had been tampered with and was running acid out of the taps.
I am not sure where you are based, but one of the first things to do is to contact a local mental health charity for information - typically they will really help you through all the steps in finding help.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

I am gay and married as many are aware of in this forum, a number of years ago my wife went in to deep depression, I was worried that she might try to end her life. I took her to the emergency room and they after talking to her felt the same. She was evaluated by
a psychiatrist and then admitted to the hospitals unit for mental patients.
She was there for two weeks and released on medications with a referral for follow up mental therapy, she saw a psychiatrist for about two years.
So you can get your mother help if she is willing to go with you.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

To be honest, you have locked yourself into a negative co-dependent living situation that cannot end well for either of you. It sounds like you really are the one who would most benefit at the moment from spending time with a counsellor to work out some of the issues you are experiencing right now. I'd start there.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Originally Posted by JohnnyAnger

Never a loved one, but early this year a friend from university lost it due to drug abuse and underlying mental health issues. This all lead to weeks of death threats from him via the internet, and increasing insane writing about aliens coming to get him. Getting someone sectioned is pretty damn hard and we had to fight his parents to get him the help he needed as he had become a danger to himself and those around him - he believed me and all my friends from university were aliens and he wanted to peel our skin off, and that all the water in his house had been tampered with and was running acid out of the taps.
I am not sure where you are based, but one of the first things to do is to contact a local mental health charity for information - typically they will really help you through all the steps in finding help.

You may be thinking about the Netherlands. The US is a wasteland for mental health services in most communities.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Originally Posted by DragononFire

Well, this person is a female, lives with me and above all, is flesh and blood. I am at my breaking point, yes, not really with her but with everything else. It doesn't help that she starts in when both of us are having a bad day and she gets really mean and personal about things. She is bipolar and needs help.

Thank you for the information, if she is your "flesh and blood", then yes you do have more "say" in the eyes of the law. Also if she has
a medical diagnosis of being Bi-Polar, then you should contact her Primary Care Provider, and explain the situation, this should enable you to get the help that you need. Good luck.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

If someone you love is out of control and you fear for their safety or the safety of others, you can have them involuntarily Baker Acted and observed for 72 hours. This term is only used in Florida; other states usually refer to it as an involuntary psychiatric hold.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

^ I don't know about that…we have an involuntary hold in Ontario, but an ordinary citizen cannot have someone committed. It only happens during psychiatric emergencies (suicide, psychosis etc.) and only a doctor or the individual can agree to the psychiatric hold…you can't commit someone without a medical license, even if they're bonkers and there's no probable cause. Sure, the OP's mother could be moody (I am not familiar with his post history), but if she does not pose a danger to herself or to others, there's nothing that can be done. Couple that with an abysmal mental health system, it's a perfect storm of apathy and perpetuates mental health stigma…*sigh*

To answer the question, I have not been involved in the commitment of someone else, but I've been "committed" before as I had a wicked reaction to Paxil (I was 21, apparently it's a no-no for youth) and I was involuntarily put on hold until the drug was out of my system. If the OP is not privy to whatever medication his mother is taking, I'm afraid nothing can be done.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Without knowing about local resources and options, the only answer I can give is to get whatever lower-level intervention is possible before taking such a serious step. I've encountered quite a variety of resources in different places where I lived, from an "escape house" where you could move in for up to ten days just to be away from the world, to a clinic you could check yourself into for six days to allow professionals to evaluate you. Depending on insurance, there are also assistance programs where others come in to do basic chores so a person can have a reduction in stress.

Originally Posted by medic1

Thank you for the information, if she is your "flesh and blood", then yes you do have more "say" in the eyes of the law. Also if she has
a medical diagnosis of being Bi-Polar, then you should contact her Primary Care Provider, and explain the situation, this should enable you to get the help that you need. Good luck.

Definitely this. One of the hardest things for us bi-polar types to learn is to know when we need to holler for help. When I was at OSU I had a half dozen friends who knew me well enough to know when I should be hollering, and who'd committed to do so for me. You're really in the same position they were, so contact that doc!

Originally Posted by Orlandude

If someone you love is out of control and you fear for their safety or the safety of others, you can have them involuntarily Baker Acted and observed for 72 hours. This term is only used in Florida; other states usually refer to it as an involuntary psychiatric hold.

Also depending on where you are it may leave a record in the police books that can count against you in the future, so I'd be easy on this one. But some places have a voluntary 72-hour hold, which leaves no negative record.

"Thirty-one* states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible. "

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

If she is off and on, as Bi-polar implies then you will have a hard time getting a commit order in the US unless she does something illegal or draws attention. I have experienced this and it is amazing how much the committed can make the other folks sound crazy if they truly want to.....

I wish you the most luck, mental illness is so terrible to deal with mostly because of people's perceptions.

Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Probably not "commit" them...I used to volunteer at Agnew State Mental Hospital until Satan St Reagan shut it down and the people who were institutionalized were sent to live on the street.....they trickled down into the gutter...and the grave...Reagan's trickle down bullshit had a lot more casualties than most people know.

I think too many of the "mental health professionals" entered the field in order to heal themselves and though they may mean well they can project a bit to much...and many are a little too liberal with the prescription pad...

...so unless I was comfortable that the person who was helping my loved one was completely competent I would not even suggest a visit....

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Originally Posted by rareboy

To be honest, you have locked yourself into a negative co-dependent living situation that cannot end well for either of you. It sounds like you really are the one who would most benefit at the moment from spending time with a counsellor to work out some of the issues you are experiencing right now. I'd start there.

A perspective that I hadn't thought about, but it may well be a helpful thing, especially because you're in immediate vicinity of her much of the time.

I wasn't aware of the UK term "sectioned" before (in other posts). Interesting.

Originally Posted by rareboy

You may be thinking about the Netherlands. The US is a wasteland for mental health services in most communities.

You got THAT right. It's probably easier to get competent mental treatment in places like Belarus and Peru.

BOSS: I'm sorry, but I'll have to lay you and Jack off. SUE: Can you just jack off? I feel like shit today.

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires" - Susan B. Anthony

THE WIZARD OF OZ: "Transported to a surreal landscape, a girl kills the first person she meets, then joins three strangers to kill again."

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

^Given the alternative of torture in an asylum pumped full of primitive pharmaceuticals...yes.
Have you ever visited a psych ward? It's no picnic how those people live. And die...in agony.

Funny enough! YES I HAVE, even had to do a "rotation" in one, your perception of an "Asylum", says it all.
We have not called those facilities by such a name for years.
As for "Primitive pharmaceuticals", the days of those and daily ECT and Lobotomy treatment, are long gone, at least here.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

I've never understood how that works. Is it a mental health professional who has that power or the police or a judge? Or all three? Well I guess it's different country to country.

Morning.
I really can only comment on that which i know, here in Scotland. A police officer has the power to "section" someone, but only for 24 hrs. A Dr can section someone for 72 hours, after which an assessment has to be carried out by specialists in the mental health field.
Under Scottish Medical Jurisprudence and Scottish Law, a "Sheriff" which is our equivalent to a magistrate can section someone, if they feel after hearing evidence from One or more family members, a specially trained mental health social worker, or a CPN.
However, guidelines state that any such "emergency" section, must be sanctioned by a team of mental health professionals within a 72 hour time-frame.

Though, when it comes to jurisprudence under "criminal" mental health, then the rules change significantly.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Originally Posted by medic1

Morning.
I really can only comment on that which i know, here in Scotland. A police officer has the power to "section" someone, but only for 24 hrs. A Dr can section someone for 72 hours, after which an assessment has to be carried out by specialists in the mental health field.
Under Scottish Medical Jurisprudence and Scottish Law, a "Sheriff" which is our equivalent to a magistrate can section someone, if they feel after hearing evidence from One or more family members, a specially trained mental health social worker, or a CPN.
However, guidelines state that any such "emergency" section, must be sanctioned by a team of mental health professionals within a 72 hour time-frame.

Though, when it comes to jurisprudence under "criminal" mental health, then the rules change significantly.

One way to be forced into a psych unit here in Silicon Valley is if you have had a suicide attempt.

I had alcohol poisoning from drinking too much once and I had my stomach pumped that night 'til I was dead ass sober and then I was taken to the psych ward for 72 hour observation against my will.

On the way in the building I kicked the cop in the balls (he had my handcuffs on too tight)....and I made a few other scenes as well 'til they locked me in a little room handcuffed for a couple hours while the charcoal they pumped into my stomach came out of my ass and I had to sit it in....

When the counselor came in to assess my mental health state she released me as she decided I wasn't trying to commit suicide...and I wasn't...but they should have kept me the 72 hours because I was a danger to myself....I later found out that it was next to impossible to be let go once they admitted you ...so I felt "special"

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

^Given the alternative of torture in an asylum pumped full of primitive pharmaceuticals...yes.
Have you ever visited a psych ward? It's no picnic how those people live. And die...in agony.

This is just so much bullshit that I can't even let it go unattended.

The world isn't all 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

I have and still do a huge amount of work related to mental heath care in Canada and the US and your perceptions of psychiatric facilities is just absurd and charged with the kind of bias and negativity that makes it such an uphill struggle to help people get the type of care they may need.

You obviously have no idea of the thrust of institutional care these days...even in the incredibly backward states in the US. The idea is to manage the crisis and then get people back to the most functional level possible so that they can take some place among 'normal' society. What is currently in terribly short supply are the community based supports that help people remain out of 'asylums'.

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

^Given the alternative of torture in an asylum pumped full of primitive pharmaceuticals...yes.
Have you ever visited a psych ward? It's no picnic how those people live. And die...in agony.

Huh? We're not necessarily talking about a state hospital. Many mental health institutions these days are like resorts.

"Thirty-one* states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible. "

Re: Would you commit someone you love to a psych unit?

Originally Posted by rareboy

This is just so much bullshit that I can't even let it go unattended.

The world isn't all 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

I have and still do a huge amount of work related to mental heath care in Canada and the US and your perceptions of psychiatric facilities is just absurd and charged with the kind of bias and negativity that makes it such an uphill struggle to help people get the type of care they may need.

You obviously have no idea of the thrust of institutional care these days...even in the incredibly backward states in the US. The idea is to manage the crisis and then get people back to the most functional level possible so that they can take some place among 'normal' society. What is currently in terribly short supply are the community based supports that help people remain out of 'asylums'.

Eh, I was in a psych ward in '11 and the Cuckoo comparison was pretty en pointe. Guy spread his shit in the hallway, up the walls and down the floors... and it was 45m before anything was even down about it. Not that I'm defending his asinine comments, as I'd rather be in a psych ward than mentally suffering outside of it.